Pc Hassan Ali (pictured) was under investigation accused of being part of the Rotherham sex ring when he died last year. At least 54 police officers are accused of turning a blind eye to the abuse

At least 54 police officers operating in and around Rotherham are accused of turning a blind eye to more than a decade of horrific child abuse by gangs of Asian men.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) is investigating 194 allegations against officers who are said to have ignored the desperate pleas of terrified schoolgirls while they were being repeatedly raped.

Some are even claimed to have been part of the paedophile sex ring.

Victims say at least one constable molested girls. Others are said to have tipped off the grooming gang’s gun-toting ringmasters as to when their South Yorkshire colleagues were closing in.

The scale of the investigation came to light in the trial of rapist brothers Arshid, 40, Basharat, 39, and Bannaras Hussain, 36 – three of the first six people convicted yesterday for carrying out a devastating catalogue of abuse on local girls.

The trio – known as Mad Ash, Bash and Bono – targeted 15 vulnerable girls, one aged only 11, over a sixteen year period. They subjected them to brutal rapes and regular beatings after impressing them with their supposed wealth, drugs, guns and cars. Arshid forced one girl to have two abortions before she was 16.

The men were given access to their victims by trusted local foster carer Karen MacGregor, 58, and Shelley Davies, 40.

MacGregor took in girls – all of whom were white – from children’s homes in the area, offering them a safe and comfortable living environment in her ‘Hansel and Gretal house’.

But once they were in she pimped them out as prostitutes, making them ‘earn their keep’ by having sex with a succession of men who were often double their age.

The women, along with the brothers’ uncle, Qurban Ali, 53, were all found guilty of child sex offences. They will be sentenced at Sheffield Crown Court tomorrow.

According to an independent inquiry by Professor Alexis Jay, more than 1,400 girls were abused in Rotherham from the late 1990s well into the 2000s, predominantly by gangs from the town’s Pakistani community.

A National Crime Agency investigation was launched last June. It has identified more than 300 suspects and 9,000 lines of inquiry.

However, it was only during the last two month’s trial that size of the probe into alleged police wrongdoing regarding the abuse was brought to light.

The Hussain brothers’ uncle, Qurban Ali (left), 53, was also found guilty of conspiracy to rape. Shelley Davies, (right) 40, was found guilty of conspiracy to procure prostitutes and false imprisonment

The court was told that one officer had sex with under-age girls, handed drugs to the grooming gang and tipped them off when colleagues were hunting for children in their possession. The constable denies the allegation.

Another is said to have helped to broker a deal in which Arshid Hussain returned an abused girl to police on the promise he would not be arrested.

Most of the claims made to the IPCC are similar: that agencies knew what was happening but failed to act.

Since the scandal was uncovered in 2013, the watchdog has received 194 allegations of police misconduct.

The victims – as made apparent during the first trial into the abuse – tend to recount the same story of not being believed or being simply ignored when they reported their perpetrators to South Yorkshire Police.

The police watchdog is now involved in 54 ongoing investigations into ‘allegations about how South Yorkshire Police dealt with child sexual exploitation in Rotherham’.

These cover a range of accusations, from a failure to act on reported child sexual exploitation to corruption.

The IPCC said it is undertaking ‘ongoing research and analysis work’ into the claims made by 41 complainants to date.

Ninety-two of the allegations relate to police officers who have been identified. The other 102 involve as yet unidentified officers.

Of the 54 officers named so far, 26 have been told they are being investigated. The remaining 28 are still being examined.

During the Hussain brothers’ trial, one woman spent three days describing how she was repeatedly abused and assaulted from the age of 11.

Karen MacGregor, described in court as a ‘mother figure’, took in girls from children’s homes purporting to give them a safe haven and support – only to then have them abused

She told the jury how she told a detective called Kenneth Dawes about what happened but no action was taken.

She said: ‘He used to have sex with girls and he used to take drugs from people and pass them on to Ash.’

The jury was told Pc Dawes was arrested in 2015 and is currently under investigation.

Another police officer who was mentioned in the trial – Pc Hassan Ali – died last year following a road traffic accident in Sheffield.

Pc Ali was told he was under investigation by the IPCC on the day he was killed. The probe followed complaints about his dealings with alleged child sexual exploitation victims.

IPCC deputy chair Rachel Cerfontyne stressed that the watchdog are committed to getting to the bottom of all allegations brought forward from victims.

She said: ‘Our investigative work examining allegations about how South Yorkshire Police responded to reported child sexual exploitation in Rotherham continues to expand.

‘This is complex work dealing with non-recent allegations and involving vulnerable and traumatised victims. We are committed to ensuring the allegations are investigated sensitively and thoroughly.’

South Yorkshire Police are not the only authority engulfed by accusations they let down the vulnerable local girls.

Victims have also pointed the finger at Rotherham Council representatives for a series of failures during their horrific ordeals.

One woman described how a councillor was involved in a deal with Arshid Hussain to return her when she and him went missing.

She told the court the councillor had rung Hussain and arranged for her to be dropped off at a petrol station on the understanding ‘he wouldn’t get done’.

Another victim, who said she was made to work as a teenage prostitute, told the jury she had proof police and social workers knew that she was being abused by Arshid Hussain in 2000.

She said: ‘Why did they leave it 15 years before knocking on my door and saying they knew?’

The tearful mother of one of the victims told the trial how she found an exercise book in which her daughter had recorded heartbreaking details of the abuse to which she was subject.

The woman said the police and social services were not interested in the book and she later burned it.

Some of the women cited distrust of the police as they told the court why they went to the media to tell their stories before they went to the authorities.

One said: ‘The only reason the police started this investigation was because The Times printed my story.’

Dr Alan Billings, police and crime commissioner for South Yorkshire, said: ‘People weren’t listened to the first time around and that was a disgrace and that’s the scandal of what happened in South Yorkshire at that time.

‘I do hope now they realise that this time they would be listened to if they come forward.’

VICTIM: TRIAL ‘ONE OF THE HARDEST THINGS EVER…BUT SO WORTH IT’

One victim of the Rotherham gang said going through with the investigation was one of the hardest things she had ever done – but concluded that it was ‘so worth it’.

The woman hoped her experience would give others the resolve to come forward and put more child abusers behind bars.

She was just 14 when she was groomed and came to fear for her life at the hands of controlling and violent Arshid Hussain.

He preyed on the teenager after meeting her at a party in the late 1990s, and would wait for her outside school. Soon he was having sex with her, despite knowing her age and being a decade older.

The woman hoped her experience would give others the resolve to come forward and put more child abusers behind bars

The victim, who cannot be identified but who is referred to as ‘Jessica’, said: ‘It has been 16 years we have waited for this. It has not sunk in yet. This can give me some closure, for me my life starts now. It has been such a mess, I can finally move on.

‘The investigation started two-and-a-half years ago and it has been one of the hardest things I have had to do, but it is so worth it. It’s an emotional rollercoaster.

‘I think a lot of people will come forward now, and think ‘if they can get justice after nearly two decades, so can I’.’

Earlier, Jessica told the BBC: ‘Very quickly he started being controlling. I wasn’t allowed to do anything without his permission.

‘He isolated me from friends and family and it became the only person in my world was him.

‘He was very violent towards me. There were times when I thought he was going to kill me.’